Road Ro(a)meo

Taking Stock of the situation.

Had to attend a friend's wedding last Monday some 18 kms from my place. Right from the day when my friend first told me about the hall she had booked for her wedding ceremony, i had this sinking feeling that i would have a tough time reaching the place.

for the record, i got a map of Bangalore city as my birthday gift this year, for being one of the most ignorant banglorean. for the trouble i put my friends into, by frequently losing my way in bangalore, i think they were waiting for such a chance to give back in kind. One particularly clever friend of mine even suggested an evil idea of buying me a ticket to a bus ride given to tourists and first timers to the city.

Bangalore city is a maze for first timers and me. I have always gotten away with it though.

Roads in bangalore are highly confusing, and add to that the overnight conversion of roads to one-ways, makes life for people such as me all the more difficult. The almost similar names of places is a nightmare too.

Like they say, ignorance comes out only when we open our mouth, in my case, it's when i start my bike.

Anyway, this, my friends came to know only recently.

i had deviced a convenient idea of mapping every place , with my house as the point of origin. Life became a lot simpler, though i did try hard to come up with decent reasons for my friends, who would frequently ask me as to why i had to go back home every time they asked me to come to brigade road. I would come up with weird excuses like "i need to fill my bike's petrol tank", or would simply tell them that i needed a nap.

I used to escape.

It's always been a big journey for me whenever i travel to places in bangalore. The thumb rule that i usually apply when i get lost is to follow the herd, that is i move in the direction in which most of the traffic flows, added to it a little local knowledge usually keeps me in good stead, and i know it when i lose my way. Once i went hopelessly wrong and reached Bangalore Cantonment, the first time i had ever been to that place. Initially tried calling up someone, trying to use one of my lives, but decided against it after thinking about the consequences of letting someone find out about my screwup. luckily for me, i saw a car which had a registration number which told me that it was registered from the Regional Transport office located near my house. I couldn't thank my stars, and followed the car hoping that the fool in the car might probably be heading to the same place i had to go to.

Apart from a few tense moments, including one in which that idiot in the car stopped by to buy vegetables making me wait for him at a distance, all went fine, and luckily i was able to reach a place from where i knew my way. two bats eyes to that stupid oaf for making me wait at that vegetable shop.

Things sometime get out of hand real bad, and luck seems to have favoured me big time in such situations.

It was this movie that we were going to watch in a theatre i had never heard of, near brigade road. First i made the fatal assumption that the theatre was probably a nick name for the one near my house.as luck had it, i reached the movie hall and called up my friends chiding them for being late, only to find out that i had been to the wrong place, but disguised it by telling that i was actually on my way and was only joking. First of all i had no idea where the theatre was, and i could not ask my friends either, with just 10 minutes for the movie to start. I tried a few of my old tricks like asking questions such as "Look i know the longer route, which is the shortest route i should take to reach the hall"....pat would the reply with the details of the route :D. Not that it made my situation any better that day, since some crack old fool was supposed to arrive that day to bangalore and hence the traffic police had converted a few roads into one-ways. In all this melee, one of my friends got wind of my ignorance, and started howling like a mad cat every 10 minutes asking me as to where i was :D... I would simply tell him that i was stuck in a traffic signal, while i was busy circling roads trying to find my way out :D.

At last i came to a place i had the least idea about, and was contemplating going back in the route i had come in before completely losing my way. Luckily for me, i met a friend from office at the traffic signal. Much as my excitement, i stiffled it and asked in a slightly high pitched tone "this one way rule they have imposed today is real silly, can you tell me the shortest route to reach Rex Theatre"...she didn't get an inkling that i was lost, and gladly guided me to a place from where i could easily reach the theatre. of course i got kicks from my friend who was waiting for me with only the guard keeping him company, while the rest of my friends were laughing their head out watching the movie :D.

Sometimes , i have put myself in the most peculiar of situations when people have asked me for directions and i had to resort to unheard of means to escape the humiliation of not knowing a particular place.

Once i had been to a place called chickpet in bangalore with my uncle. I was waiting alone outside the shop while my uncle was purchasing something. A boy came to me and asked me in kannada "Saar gundappa rasthe ell barathey ?" ("where is gundappa street ?")...I had no idea !. That boy looked like a 6 year old midget, and i didn't want him to know that the odds of me ever being able to tell where "gundappa street" was as much as sonia gandhi winning wimbledon. Instead i tried to pull off the "do not know language trick"...and shouted "eh?"...to which the kid improvised and asked "where is gundappa ?"...i had to control my laughter, but just was biding time to see if he would let me loose and give up on me. after a confused stare, he murmurmed "kivda" ("deaf guy !") and left :D

On another occasion one of my lead at office who was new to bangalore and new to my antics called me up one day asking me the route to Lalbagh from MG road. That was as complex as it could get. Though i knew both the places well, it was only from my place that i knew the route to reach these places, not directly. Instead of telling him so, i tried to tell him the route which would take him near to my place and then further from there to Lalbagh. Well he got to know that it was not the best way after all, and luckily i had a staff nearby at office who offered to help me out of the sticky situation.

An innocent friend of mine from office asked me if i could guide him to a place i had heard for the first time, and i managed to tell him enough to make him completely drop the idea of going to that place altogether :D

I will not bring in here, the incident when i was in bombay for the first time, and got down near Dadar station, thinking it was Borivali; i asked one passerby as to which train to take to go to Dadar station, to which the guy gave me a weird look and said "Turn right and walk 5 steps, and don't look back" in hindi :D :D...

I have more or less improved in my sense of places in bangalore now, except for a few hiccups sometimes, which surely is not in my best interests worth mentioning ;D.

and yeah, you are right ,i lost my way while coming back from my friend's wedding last monday. Then again, it's been two weeks since then, and haven't lost my way yet :).